Afrocentricity is a paradigm
based on the idea that African people should re-assert a sense of agency
in order to achieve sanity. During the l960s a group of African
American intellectuals in the newly-formed Black Studies departments at
universities began to formulate novel ways of analyzing information. In
some cases, these new ways were called looking at information from “a
black perspective” as opposed to what had been considered the “white
perspective” of most information in the American academy.

In the late l970s Molefi Kete Asante began speaking of the need for an
Afrocentric orientation to data. By l980 he had published a book,
Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change, which launched the first
full discussion of the concept. Although the word existed before
Asante’s book and had been used by many people, including Asante in the
l970s, and Kwame Nkrumah in the l960s, the intellectual idea did not
have substance as a philosophical concept until l980.

The Afrocentric paradigm is a revolutionary shift in thinking proposed as a constructural
adjustment to black disorientation, decenteredness, and lack of agency.
The Afrocentrist asks the question, “What would African people do if
there were no white people?” In other words, what natural responses
would occur in the relationships, attitudes toward the environment,
kinship patterns, preferences for colors, type of religion, and
historical referent points for African people if there had not been any
intervention of colonialism or enslavement? Afrocentricity answers this
question by asserting the central role of the African subject within the
context of African history, thereby removing Europe from the center of
the African reality. In this way, Afrocentricity becomes a revolutionary
idea because it studies ideas, concepts, events, personalities, and
political and economic processes from a standpoint of black people as
subjects and not as objects, basing all knowledge on the authentic
interrogation of location.

So that it
becomes legitmate to ask, “Where is the sistah coming from?” or “Where
is the brotha at?” “Are you down with overcoming oppression?” These are
assessment and evaluative questions that allow the interrogator to
accurately pinpoint the responder’s location, whether it be a cultural
or psychological location. As a paradigm Afrocentricity enthrones the
centrality of the African, that is, black ideals and values, as
expressed in the highest forms of African culture, and activates
consciousness as a functional aspect of any revolutionary approach to
phenomena. The cognitive and structural aspects of a paradigm are
incomplete without the functional aspect. There is something more than knowing in the Afrocentric sense; there is also doing. Afrocentricity holds that all definitions are autobiographical.

One of the key assumptions of the Afrocentrist is that all
relationships are based on centers and margins and the distances from
either the center or the margin. When black people view themselves as
centered and central in their own history then they see themselves as
agents, actors, and participants rather than as marginals on the
periphery of political or economic experience. Using this paradigm,
human beings have discovered that all phenomena are expressed in the
fundamental categories of space and time. Furthermore,
it is then understood that relationships develop and knowledge
increases to the extent we are able to appreciate the issues of space
and time.

The Afrocentric scholar or practitioner knows that one way to express Afrocentricity is called marking.
Whenever a person delineates a cultural boundary around a particular
cultural space in human time, this is called marking. It might be done
with the announcement of a certain symbol, the creation of a special
bonding, or the citing of personal heroes of African history and
culture. Beyond citing the revolutionary thinkers in our history, that
is, beyond Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X and Nkrumah, we must
be prepared to act upon our interpretation of what is in the best
interest of black people, that is, black people as an historically
oppressed population. This is the fundamental necessity for advancing
the political process.

Afrocentricity is the substance of our regeneration because it is in
line with what contemporary philosophers Haki Madhubuti and Maulana
Karenga, among others, have articulated as in the best image and
interest of African people. What is any better than operating and acting
out of our own collective interest? What is any greater than seeing
the world through our eyes? What resonates more with people than
understanding that we are central to our history, not someone else’s?
If we can, in the process of materializing our consciousness, claim
space as agents of progressive change, then we can change our condition
and change the world. Afrocentricity maintains that one
can claim this space only if one knows the general characteristics of
Afrocentricity as well as the practical applications of the field.

There are five general characteristics of the Afrocentric Method

The Afrocentric method considers that no phenomena can be apprehended adequately without locating it first. A phenom
must be studied and analyzed in relationship to psychological time and
space. It must always be located. This is the only way to investigate
the complex interrelationships of science and art, design and execution,
creation and maintenance, generation and tradition, and other areas
bypassed by theory.

The Afrocentric method considers
phenomena to be diverse, dynamic, and in motion and therefore it is
necessary for a person to accurately note and record the location of
phenomena even in the midst of fluctuations. This means that the
investigator must know where he or she is standing in the process.

The
Afrocentric method is a form of cultural criticism that examines
etymological uses of words and terms in order to know the source of an
author’s location. This allows us to intersect ideas with actions and
actions with ideas on the basis of what is pejorative and ineffective
and what is creative and transformative at the political and economic
levels.

The Afrocentric method seeks to uncover the masks
behind the rhetoric of power, privilege, and position in order to
establish how principal myths create place. The method enthrones
critical reflection that reveals the perception of monolithic power as
nothing but the projection of a cadre of adventurers.

The
Afrocentric method locates the imaginative structure of a system of
economics, bureau of politics, policy of government, expression of
cultural form in the attitude, direction, and language of the phenom, be it text, institution, personality, interaction, or event.

Analytic Afrocentricity

Analytic
Afrocentricity is the application of the principles of the Afrocentric
method to textual analysis. An Afrocentrist seeks to understand the
principles of the Afrocentric method in order to use them as a guide in
analysis and discourse. It goes without saying that the Afrocentrist
cannot function properly as a scientist or humanist if he or she does
not adequately locate the phenom in time and space. This means
that chronology is as important in some situations as location. The two
aspects of analysis are central to any proper understanding of society,
history, or personality. Inasmuch as phenoms are active,
dynamic, and diverse in our society, the Afrocentric method requires the
scientists to focus on accurate notations and recording of space and
time. In fact, the best way to apprehend location of a text is to
determine where the researcher is located in time and space first. Once
you know the location and time of the researcher or author it is fairly
easy to establish the parameters for the phenom itself. The
value of etymology, that is, the origin of terms and words is in the
proper identification and location of concepts. The Afrocentrist seeks
to demonstrate clarity by exposing dislocations, disorientations, and
decenterness. One of the simplest ways of accessing textual clarity is
through etymology. Myths tie all relationships together, whether
personal or conceptual. It is the Afrocentrist’s task to determine to
what extent the myths of society are represented as being central to or
marginal to society. This means that any textual analysis must involve
the concrete realities of lived experiences, thus making historical
experiences a key element in analytica Afrocentricity. In examining
attitude, direction, and language the Afrocentrist is seeking to uncover
the imagination of the author. What one seeks to do is to create an
opportunity for the writer to show where he or she stands in
relationship to the subject. Is the writer centered or is the writer
marginalized within his own story?

Afrocentric Philosophy

The
philosophy of Afrocentricity as expounded by Molefi Kete Asante and Ama
Mazama, central figures of the Temple School, is a way of answering all
cultural, economic, political, and social questions related to African
people from a centered position. There are other Afrocentric ideas as
well but these are the ones propounded in texts by Professors Asante,
Mazama, and the late C. Tsehloane Keto. Indeed, Afrocentricity cannot
be reconciled to any hegemonic or idealistic philosophy. It is opposed
to radical individualism as expressed in the postmodern school. But it
is also opposed to spookism, confusion, and superstition. As
example of the differences between the methods of Afrocentricity and
postmodernism, consider the following question, “Why have Africans been
shut out of global development?” The postmodernist would begin by
saying that there is no such thing as “Africans” because there are many
different types of Africans and all Africans are not equal. The
postmodernist would go on to say that if there were Africans and if the
conditions were as described by the querist then the answer would be
that Africans had not fully developed their own capacities in
relationship to the global economy and therefore they are outside of the
normal development patterns of the world economy. On the other hand,
the Afrocentrist does not question the fact that there is a collective
sense of Africanity revealed in the common experiences of the African
world. The Afrocentrist would look to the questions of location, control
of the hegemonic global economy, marginalization, and power positions
as keys to understand the underdevelopment of African people.